
Clear Confident Leader Weekly Observer, Issue #70
From the Greenbelt of Boise Idaho, Springtime: Warm Sun, Gentle Breeze
Generating Effective Teamwork requires more than team building and understanding each others’ personalities and styles.
In the first post of this series, we saw some startling statistics of how few teams are truly high performing. In stark contrast to the future of organizations being a “network of teams”, teamwork today has become a struggle challenging both individuals and organizations. This second in the series dives into the first of five areas to enable Team Success, Leveraging the Team Life Cycle.

These three points provide crucial opportunities to set teams up for success.
Research by Richard Hackman and Ruth Wageman indicates, that 60% of the success of teams starts with good design followed by 30% associated with the team launch, making the start or re-start of teams crucial.
How do you design and launch your teams?
Midpoints allow for review and realignment on what is needed to achieve team goals in the given timeframe. Effective teams are tracking their progress along the way, and use more than the midpoint to course correct as needed.
How do your teams check progress and realign?
Good Endings provide time for reflection and learning that is carried over into the new re-start or the next team traveling in a similar cycle. I spent many years in Hewlett Packard working on Product Management Teams responsible for creating new products and services. The best of these teams leveraged insights and practices from previous teams to jumpstart and accelerate their results.
How do your teams’ endings set the stage and accelerate the next cycle?
One additional critical aspect is, what happens when a team is clearly of course. Is it allowed to continue wallowing along, or is a pause declared followed by a clear re-design and re-launch to enable team success?
How do you deal with teams clearly off course?
Over the next five posts I’ll share more information on Clarifying the Context, Measuring Outcomes, Six Design Conditions and Culture Essentials to improve teamwork as the Heart of Organization Success.
I work with teams and leaders to create better results through the conscious evolution of our practice of leadership. Let’s create a better future today!